


Vent

by Defiler_Wyrm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon Compliant, Gen, Impala Fic, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Season/Series 02, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 07:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defiler_Wyrm/pseuds/Defiler_Wyrm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a hundred five degrees out, they're as many miles away from that town outside Flagstaff with the Black Dog problem, and they're plastered to the leather seats with sweat even with the AC on high. To make matters worse, something in the vent's making a racket that's driving Sam straight out of his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deans1911 (partialdifferential)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=deans1911+%28partialdifferential%29).



> This started as [a thing about Dean and Legos](http://rockchester.tumblr.com/post/57227586610/defilerwyrm-replied-to-your-post-dean-with) and [got much sadder](http://defilerwyrm.tumblr.com/post/57232365383/deanlorean-defilerwyrm-replied-to-your-post) and then we ended up here.

Every once in a while over the years there are instances like these. They’re driving down the highway in the dead-heat dog days of summer, both silently cursing the fact that they’re in an all-black car with leather seats (not that Dean would ever admit it, and he follows up the thought with an equally-silent  _I didn’t mean it, Baby_ ) ‘cause it’s a hundred five degrees and there’s still as many miles to go til they reach that town outside Flagstaff with the Black Dog problem (Sam insists it’s gotta be a skinwalker because come  _on_ ).

The AC’s up as high as it’ll go and they’re down to their tees and  _still_  sticking to the seats, and nothing seems to bring out Sam’s Whiny Little Brother streak like miserable weather. He’s finally gotten it through his shaggy head that bitching about the heat will accomplish nothing so he sits in sullen silence until he can’t stand it anymore: the  _rattling_.

"Didn’t you rebuild this thing pretty much from the ground up?" he snaps as they sail past some barely-a-pit-stop “town". Dean responds with a side-eye that carefully balances bewilderment with defensiveness –  _What the Hell is YOUR problem?_  spoken with a single eloquent eyebrow, widened eyes, and the twist of his mouth. Sam’s stock rejoinder is Bitchface #25: You KNOW What So Don’t Give Me That Look, Dean. He forces a sigh through his nose and continues trying to bore a hole through his brother’s skull with his gaze (which would have more effect if it weren’t for the sweat-soaked bangs plastered to his forehead, in Dean’s estimation). “It didn’t occur to you to maybe remove the twenty-year-old Legos from the vent? ‘Cause I gotta tell ya if I have to sit through another five hundred miles of wasteland listening to that shit rattling around like, like maracas from Hell I’m gonna get a screwdriver and wait til you’re asleep–"

"You touch her and you’re a dead man," Dean growls. Any other time he’d’ve said it cheerily, wearing the sort of grin usually seen on moms when they say  _Go right on ahead, just try it_  in the most terrifying form of irony known to mankind. But it’s a hundred five degrees and they’re as many miles from civilisation and they’re sticking to the leather seats with shirts soaked through with sweat and he is not in the mood even for that.

‘Cause he’d never admit it but he left them there on purpose. He even counted them to make sure they were all still there. Same reason he spent a solid half-hour at the wreck site looking for that one part of the underside of the trunk where they’d carved their initials as if it could give the Impala roots and make her something more permanent, something like a real home, something steady and  _theirs_  the way other kids had houses or apartments they’d stay in for more than five weeks at a time. Over the years she became just that even if she, like the Winchesters, never stayed still.

He’d never admit it but he’s grown so used to that subtle rattle in the heat that every car he’s hotwired or rode in sounds weird without it, conspicuously and uncomfortably quiet the way a sudden lack of birdsong in the woods sets his instincts all on edge.

And oh he’d never even  _hint_  at it but there might just be a part of him that wants to hold on to the memory of rare, unguarded moments when he could indulge in a (tiny, stunted) creative streak that still tries to sprout now and then, back when taking things apart and putting them back together was allowed to be more about discovery and fun than utility. At the same time there might just be a part of him that needs to remember the lesson of what happens when he lets his personal ventures (like trading for Legos in the schoolyard) distract him from his responsibilities (like making sure said Legos are accounted for before the lights go out). Bruises fade and tears dry. But by god if it’s within his power that damn AC vent is gonna have little plastic bricks rattling around in it til Judgment Day.

Sam, of course, doesn’t know this. Just the way Dean intends to keep it. So he stares back, makes a bitchy little impatient noise, and looks pointedly away. “God you are such an annoying jerk."

"And you’re a prissy bitch," Dean cuts back (oh but now he’s having to fight back a grin; there’s something about Sam’s most petulant moments that, irritating as they are, make him seem like an innocent kid again instead of a half-broken man with shadows under his eyes). “You want it to stop? Fine, here you go."

And he cuts off the AC.

He bets himself five miles til Sam turns contrite and wheedling to get the air turned back on. He’s impressed when Sam makes it thirteen.


End file.
